AN 


ORATION 


CITIZENS  OF  THE  TOWN  OF  QUINCY, 


ON    THK 


FOURTH    OF    JULY,     1831, 


F  I  F  T  Y  -  F  T  F  T  1 1     ANNIVERSARY 


INDEPENDENCE 


UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA. 


BY    JOHN    QUINOYj  ADAMS. 


BOSTON: 
RICHARDSON,    LORD    AND    HOLBROOK. 

1831. 


RARE  WESTERN  BOOKS 

4227  S.  E.  Stark  St. 
PORTLAND.  ORE. 


ENTERED  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1831, 

By   THOMAS    PHIPPS,   NOAH   CURTIS    and   WILMAM    SEAVKR, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


BOSTON      PRESS WATER      S  T  R  E  E  T . 


QUINCY,  July  6,  1831. 
Hon.  JOHN  Q.  ADAMS. 

SIR, — Agreeably  to  a  vote  passed  on  the  4th  inst.  at  the  Town  Hull,  by 
those  who  listened  to  your  learned  and  eloquent  address,  and  in  behalf  of  the 
Committee  of  Arrangements,  chosen  by  the  citizens  of  Quincy,  we  present  to 
you  our  united  thanks  therefor,  and  respectfully  request  a  copy  for  the  press. 

TH.  PHIPPS,  ^ 

NOAH  CURTIS,          >  Sub-committee. 

WILLIAM  SEAVER,  } 


Messrs.  THOMAS  PHIPPS, 
NOAH  CURTIS,  and 
WILLIAM  SEAVER. 

QUINCY,  13th  July,  1831. 
GENTLEMEN, 

A  copy  of  the  address,  prepared  at  the  request  of  the  citizens,  inhabitants 
of  Quincy,  on  the  occasion  of  their  recent  celebration  of  our  national  anniversary, 
is,  in  compliance  with  your  request,  submitted  to  your  disposal.  It  may  be  proper 
to  apprize  you,  that,  to  avoid  too  great  prolixity,  some  passages  of  it  were  omit 
ted  in  the  delivery. 

I  am,  with  great  respect,  gentlemen, 
your  friend  and  fellow  citizen, 

JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS. 


M35342 


ORATION 

*  «  V 


FRIENDS,  COUNTRYMEN,  AND  FELLOW  CITIZENS — 

THE  celebrations  of  this  anniversary  have  been 
so  frequent  and  multiplied  throughout  the  Union,  for 
a  period  now  largely  stretching  upon  a  second  half 
century,  that  a  speaker,  far  more  competent  to  bor 
row  for  support  in  his  flight  the  wings  of  imagina 
tion,  than  he  who  now  addresses  you,  might  well  open 
his  discourse,  by  entreating  your  indulgence,  and  de 
precating  your  censure.  Even  the  powers  of  speech, 
the  special  prerogative  of  man,  as  a  member  of  the 
animal  creation,  are  not  unlimited.  The  discourse 
of  reason,  though  looking  before  and  after,  is  bounded 
in  its  vision  by  an  horizon  ;  and  Eloquence  herself 
perhaps  best  performs  her  appropriate  office  by  si 
lence  upon  exhausted  topics. 

The  independence  of  the  North  American  Union 
is,  however,  susceptible  of  being  considered  under  a 
great  variety  of  points  of  view.  The  contemplation 
of  its  causes  must  indeed  ever  remain  the  same ; 
but  that  of  its  consequences  varies  from  year  to 
year.  A  speaker,  on  the  first  anniversary  after  the 
Declaration,  in  the  midst  of  the  terrific  conflict  to 
maintain  it,  and  while  its  expediency,  if  riot  its 
justice,  was  yet  pending  upon  the  issues  of  war,  had 


a  far  different  theme  from  him  who  now,  after  the 
lapse  of  nearly  two  generations  of  men,  is  called  to 
review  the  progress  of  principles  then  proclaimed,  as 
their  influence  has  expanded  upon  the  mind  of  civi 
lized  man.  The  test  of  all  principle  is  time  ;  and 
tha.t  which  wlien;  first  announced  as  truth,  maybe 
treated,  by  the  almost  unanimous  voice  of  mankind 
as  pernicious  paradox  or  hateful  heresy,  when  scru 
tinized  by  long  observation,  and  felt  in  practical  re 
sults,  may  become  an  axiom  of  knowledge,  or  an 
article  of  uncontroverted  faith.  The  astronomer, 
who  in  his  nightly  visitation  of  the  heavens  perceives 
a  ray  of  light  before  unobserved,  discovers  no  new 
phenomenon  in  nature.  He  is  only  the  first  to  dis 
cern  the  beam  which  has  glowed  from  the  creation 
of  the  world.  After-observation  and  the  calculations 
of  science,  will  disclose  whether  it  proceeded  from  a 
star  fixed  in  the  firmament  from  the  birth  of  time, 
from  a  planet  revolving  around  the  central  luminary 
of  our  own  system,. or  from  a  comet,  "  shaking  from 
its  horrid  hair,  pestilence  and  war." 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  was  a  manifesto 
issued  to  the  world,  by  the  delegates  of  thirteen 
distinct,  but  UNITED  colonies  of  Great  Britain,  in 
the  name  and  behalf  of  their  people.  It  was  a 
united  declaration.  Their  union  preceded  their  inde 
pendence  ;  nor  was  their  independence,  nor  has  it 
ever  since,  been  separable  from  their  union.  Their 
language  is,  "  We  the  Representatives  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  in  General  Congress  assembled, 
do,  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the  good 
PEOPLE  of  these  Colonies,  solemnly  publish  and  de 
clare  that  these  United  -Colonies,  are.  and  of  right 


ought  to  be,  free  and  independent  States."  It  was 
the  act  of  one  people*  The  Colonies  are  not  named ; 
their  number  is  not  designated  ;  nor  in  the  original 
Declaration,  does  it  appear  from  which  of  the  Colo 
nies  any  one  of  the  fifty-six  Delegates  by  whom  it 
was  signed,  had  been  deputed.  They  announced 
their  constituents  to  the  world  as  one  people,  and 
unitedly  declared  the  Colonies  to  which  they  respect 
ively  belonged,  united,  free  and  independent  states. 
The  Declaration  of  Independence,  therefore,  was  a 
proclamation  to  the  world,  not  merely  that  the 
United  Colonies  had  ceased  to  be  dependencies  of 
Great  Britain,  but  that  their  people  had  bound  them 
selves,  before  GOD,  to  a  primitive  social  compact  of 
union,  freedom  and  independence. 

The  parties  to  this  compact  were  the  people  of  thir 
teen  Colonies  of  Great  Britain,  located  upon  the  con 
tinent  of  North  America,  occupying  territories  con 
tiguous  to  each  other,  and  holding  a  political  exist 
ence  founded  upon  charters  derived  from  successive 
sovereigns  of  that  island .  These  charters  were  of  vari 
ous  import,  nor  was  there  any  link  of  union,  or  even  of 
connexion  between  them  ;  but  in  all,  the  rights  of 
British  subjects  had  been  solemnly  secured  to  the 
settlers  under  them,  and  among  the  first  of  those 
rights,  was  that  of  freedom  from  arbitrary  tax 
ation.  The  first  of  the  charters  had  been  granted  by 
James  the  First  of  England  and  Sixth  of  Scotland, 
the  first  British  monarch  of  the  House  of  Stuart. 
The  most  recent  of  them  had  emanated  from  George 
II.,  of  the  House  of  Hanover,  a  family,  which,  by 
a  revolution  in  the  maternal  island,  had  supplant- 


ed  that  of  the  Stuarts  on  the  British  throne.  That 
revolution  itself  had  been  the  result  of  a  long  and 
sanguinary  conflict  between  the  primary  principles  of 
human  authority  and  of  human  freedom.  In  the 
preceding  ages,  England  had  been,  for  nearly  one  hun 
dred  years,  the  theatre  of  desolating  civil  wars  upon 
a  question  in  the  theory  of  goverment,  as  insignificant 
to  the  people  of  the  realm,  as  if  it  had  been  upon  the 
merits  of  the  badges  respectively  assumed  by  the 
parties  to  the  strife. 

If  an  historian  or  an  orator  should  affirm,  that  one 
of  the  most  spirited  and  intelligent  nations  upon  earth 
had  inflicted  upon  itself,  for  a  term  little  short  of  a 
century,  all  the  horrors  and  desolations  of  a  civil  war, 
to  ascertain  and  settle  which,  of  a  White  Rose  or  a 
Red  Rose,  breathes  the  sweetest  fragrance — the  asser 
tion  might  not  be  literally,  but  it  would  be  more  than 
figuratively  true.  The  question  between  the  Houses 
of  York  and  Lancaster,  was,  whether  upon  the  death 
of  a  King  of  England,  childless,  the  right  to  his  crown 
devolved  upon  the  son  of  a  brother,  previously  de 
ceased,  but  who  had  been  next  to  himself  by  birth,  or 
to  his  own  surviving  younger  brother.  This  is  a  ques 
tion  which  could  not  possibly  arise  under  any  govern 
ment,  other  than  a  hereditary  monarchy,  and  in 
which  the  people  who  were  the  victims  of  the  con 
troversy,  had,  abstracted  from  the  respective  personal 
qualities  of  the  pretenders  to  the  crown,  no  more  in 
terest  than  in  the  dissensions  in  the  kingdom  of  Lilli- 
put  on  the  question  whether  an  egg  should  be  broken 
at  the  big  or  at  the  little  end.  But  the  civil  wars  of 
the  British  nation  in  the  seventeenth  century  were  of 
a  very  different  character.  The  question  then  was, 


9 

not  who  had  the  right  to  the  throne,  but  what  were 
the  rights  of  the  throne  ;  not,  upon  whose  head  the 
polished  perturbation  and  golden  care  of  the  crown 
should  descend,  but  what  was  the  lawful  extent  of 
power  in  him  who  wore  it ;  what  the  extent  of  ob 
ligation  upon  the  people  to  yield  obedience  to  him ; 
what  their  right  and  duty  to  defend  themselves 
against  his  encroachments  ;  and  what  their  just  and 
lawful  remedy  against  the  abuses  of  his  authority. 
It  was  the  question  between  right  and  might,  be 
tween  liberty  and  power ; — a  question  the  most  solemn 
and  momentous  of  any  that  can  be  agitated  among 
men ; — a  question  upon  the  issues  of  which  war  be 
comes  the  most  imperious  of  human  obligations,  and 
the  field  of  battle  the  sublimest  theatre  of  heroic  mar 
tyrdom  and  patriotic  achievement. 

In  the  progress  of  this  controversy,  the  British 
nation  had  been  twice  brought  to  the  decision,  that 
the  individual  at  the  head  of  their  government,  had, 
by  his  usurpations  and  oppressions,  forfeited  his 
right  to  the  crown ;  and  in  the  first  of  these  instan 
ces,  his  life.  In  the  exasperation  of  feelings,  stimu 
lated  by  a  long  and  cruel  civil  war,  they  had  tinged 
the  scaffold  with  the  blood  of  their  king ;  and  then, 
by  one  of  those  reactions  of  popular  sensibility,  which 
never  fail  to  follow  the  violation  of  the  laws  of  hu 
manity,  they  had  passed  from  one  extreme  to  an 
other,  and  worshipped  as  a  saint  and  martyr  him  whom 
they  had  beheaded  as  a  tyrant.  Proceeding  in  the 
second  instance  with  more  caution,  they  had  suffered 
the  offender  to  escape,  and  then  construed  his  flight 
for  life,  as  a  voluntary  abdication  of  his  power. 
This  they  declared  he  had  done,  by  breaking  the  ori- 
2 


10 

ginal  contract  between  king  and  people.  And  thus, 
by  the  deliberate  and  solemn  determination  of  the 
British  nation,  it  had  been  settled,  that  the  supreme 
powers  of  government,  under  their  political  constitu 
tion,  were  possessed  and  exercised  by  virtue  of  an  ori 
ginal  contract  with  the  people. 

The  charters  of  the  thirteen  North  American  Col 
onies  were  also  original  contracts  between  the  king 
and  the  people  to  whom  they  had  been  granted.  It 
was  a  right  exercised  by  most  of  the  European  mon- 
archs  in  those  ages,  and  also  by  the  republican  gov 
ernment  of  the  Netherlands.  By  long  usage  and 
common  consent  it  had  become  an  acknowledged 
attribute  of  colonizing  power  ;  and  in  Great  Britain 
was  a  royal  prerogative  in  which  the  Parliament  had 
no  agency.  The  existence  of  the  Colonies,  therefore, 
was  from  the  beginning  independent  of  the  authority  of 
Parliament.  Their  contract  was  with  the  king. 

In  the  reign  of  George  III.,  when,  by  a  succession 
of  wars  commenced  after  the  final  downfal  of  the 
House  of  Stuart,  the  British  nation  had  become  hea 
vily  burthened  with  debt,  and  consequently  with  tax 
ation,  an  English  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  con 
ceived  the  ingenious  idea  of  recommending  himself 
to  the  people  of  his  own  island,  by  casting  off  a  por 
tion  of  their  burdens  upon  the  people  of  the  Colonies  ; 
as  the  Knight  of  La  Mancha  was  disposed  to  propi 
tiate  the  lady  of  his  affections,  by  scourging  the  back 
of  his  Squire  :  and  as  it  had  been  well  ascertained, 
since  the  days  of  John  Hambden  and  ship-money, 
that  the  royal  authority,  however  competent  to  the 
grant  of  charters,  did  not  extend  to  the  arbitrary  levy 
of  money  by  taxation,  the  minister  undertook  to  per- 


11 

form  by  act  of  Parliament,  that  which  he  did  not 
dare  to  attempt  by  the  mere  authority  of  the  king. 

By  their  original  constitution,  the  Colonies  were 
independent  of  the  Parliament.  They  were  not  re 
presented  in  that  body.  They  had  no  share  in  the 
election  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  levying 
of  taxes  upon  them  by  Parliament  was  precisely 
the  same  usurpation,  as  the  levying  of  ship-money 
had  been  in  Charles  I.  It  was  the  privilege  of 
British  subjects,  that  no  part  of  their  property  could 
be  taken  from  them  but  by  an  authority  in  which 
they  were  represented.  To  this  principle  the  Col 
onies  appealed  in  their  first  remonstrances  and  resis 
tance  against  the  Stamp  Act.  It  was  not  the  bur 
den  of  tax  to  which  they  objected.  It  was  to  the 
inherent  servitude  of  the  principle. 

Alarmed  at  the  vehemence  and  unanimity  with 
which  the  first  attempt  at  arbitrary  taxation  was 
resisted  in  the  Colonies,  the  ministers  of  George  III. 
prevailed  upon  Parliament  to  repeal  the  tax,  but  at 
the  same  time  to  declare  their  right  to  make  laws  for 
the  Colonies  in  all  cases  whatsoever. 

This  declaration  of  right,  was  a  mere  declaration 
of  power.  The  judges  of  England  had  declared 
that  Charles  I.  had  the  right  to  levy  ship-money  ; 
and  that  declaration  was  neither  more  unjust  nor 
more  absurd  than  this.  In  either  case  the  mere  ques 
tion  whence  the  right  was  derived  must  be  fatal  to 
its  assertion.  In  both  cases  the  claim  was  found 
ed  upon  an  erroneous  first  principle  of  government, 
very  far  from  being  eradicated  even  at  this  day,  in 
our  own  age,  and  our  own  country  ;  a  principle  un 
der  which  the  pillars  of  our  Union  are  tottering  while 


12 

I  speak,  and  which,  if  once  permitted  to  prevail,  will 
leave  us  a  monumental  ruin, 

"  To  point  a  moral,  or  adorn  a  tale." 

The  British  Parliament  derived  their  claim  of  right 

O 

to  make  laws  for  the  Colonies  in  all  cases  whatsoever, 
from  a  principle  of  government  which  is  stated  by  the 
great  commentator  upon  the  laws  of  England  thus  ; — 
"  There  is,  and  must  6e,"  says  he,  "  in  all  forms  of  gov 
ernment,  however  they  began,  or  by  what  right  so 
ever  they  subsist,  a  supreme,  irresistible,  absolute, 
uncontrolled  authority,  in  which  the  jura  summi  im 
peril  or  the  rights  of  sovereignly,  reside."  These  are 
his  words,  which  he  further  explains  by  saying,  that 
by  the  sovereign  power  is  meant  the  making  of  laws. 
And  in  treating  of  the  power  of  Parliament,  he 
adds  ; — "  This  is  the  place  where  that  absolute  despo 
tic  pow7er,  which  must  in  all  governments  reside 
somewhere,  is  entrusted  by  the  constitution  of  the 
British  kingdoms."  These  are  again  his  words. 

Behold,  my  fellow  citizens,  the  cause  of  the  North 
American  Revolution  !  Look  at  that  cold  exanimate 
flint,  which,  clashing  with  the  steel  of  your  fathers' 
hearts,  struck  out  the  spark  and  kindled  the  flame 
which  reduced  to  ashes  the  British  dominion  in  these 
United  States; — nor  ceasing  there,  its  burning  brands 
have  floated  on  the  wings  of  the  winds  back  to  Eu 
rope,  instinct  with  unextinguishable  fire,  and  spread 
ing  at  once  light  and  conflagration  throughout  the 
regions  inhabited  by  civilized  man, — a  false  definition 
of  the  term  sovereignty ;  an  erroneous  estimate  of  the 
extent  of  sovereign  po\ver  ! 

It  is  not  true  that  there  must  reside  in  all  govern 
ments  an  absolute,  uncontrolled,  irresistible,  and  des- 


13 

potic  power:  nor  is  such  power  in  any  manner  essential 
to  sovereignty.  The  direct  converse  of  the  proposition 
is  true.  Uncontrollable  power  exists  in  no  govern 
ment  upon  earth.  The  sternest  despotisms,  in  every 
region  and  every  age  of  the  world,  are  and  have  been 
under  perpetual  control ;  compelled,  as  Burke  ex 
presses  it,  to  truckle  and  to  huckster.  Unlimited 
power  belongs  not  to  the  nature  of  man;  and  rotten 
will  be  the  foundation  of  every  government  leaning 
upon  such  a  maxim  for  its  support.  Least  of  all  can  it 
be  predicated  of  any  government  professing  to  be 
founded  upon  an  original  compact.  The  pretence  of 
an  absolute,  irresistible,  despotic  power,  existing  in 
every  government  somewhere,  is  incompatible  with 
the  first  principle  of  natural  right.  Take  for  exam 
ple  the  right  to  life.  The  moment  an  infant  is  born, 
it  has  a  right  to  the  life  which  it  has  received  from 
the  Creator.  Amiable  and  benevolent  moralists  have 
sometimes  denied  that  this  right  can  be  forfeited  to 
human  laws,  even  by  the  commission  of  crime.  With 
out  concurring  in  that  sentiment,  we  may  safely  affirm, 
that  no  human  being,  no  combination  of  human  be 
ings,  has  the  power,  I  say  not  the  physical,  but  the 
moral  power,  to  take  a  life  not  so  forfeited,  unless 
in  self-defence  or  by  the  laws  of  war.  No  power 
in  government  exists  to  take  it  without  a  cause  ; 
none,  surely  none,  in  the  British  Parliament.  Nor 
let  me  be  told  that  governments  have  exercised  and 
do  exercise  this  power ;  that  the  ancient  Romans 
and  the  modern  Chinese  hold  it  no  wrong  in  the  pa 
rent  to  expose  his  new-born  child,  and  leave  it  to  per 
ish  in  its  own  helplessness. — Fathers!  MOTHERS! 
is  this  the  law  of  nature  ?  Christians !  is  this  the 


14 

law  of  your  Redeemer  ?  Americans  !  ask  the  Dec 
laration  of  Independence,  and  that  will  tell  you  that 
its  authors  held  for  self-evident  truth,  that  the  right 
to  life  is  the  first  of  the  unalienable  rights  of  man,  to 
secure,  and  not  to  destroy  which,  governments  are  in 
stituted  among  men,  and  that  the  sovereignty  wrhich 
would  arrogate  to  itself  absolute,  unlimited  power, 
must  appeal  for  its  sanction  to  those  illustrious  ex 
pounders  of  human  rights,  Pharaoh  of  Egypt,  and 
Herod  the  Great  of  Judea. 

Yet  upon  this  false  position,  and  upon  this  alone, 
rested  the  claim  of  the  British  Parliament  to  tax  the 
Colonies,  and  to  make  lawrs  for  them  in  all  cases 
whatsoever.  Take  away  this  imaginary  attribute  of 
sovereignty,  and  the  Stamp  Act  and  the  Tea  Tax 
were  no  better  than  higlnvay  robbery.  Take  it 
away,  and  the  British  Parliament  had  no  more  right 
to  tax  the  Colonies,  than  the  Parliament  of  Paris, 
or  the  Sultan  of  Constantinople. 

The  power  of  Parliament  to  tax  the  Colonies,  was 
denied  in  America,  from  the  first  appearance  of  the 
Stamp  Act,  with  a  vigor  and  energy,  characteristic 
of  a  just  claim  of  right.  But  the  independence  of 
the  Colonies  upon  Great  Britain,  was  neither  pre 
tended  nor  contemplated  by  the  great  body  of  the 
people.  The  relations  between  a  parent  state  and 
her  colonies,  are  founded  upon  the  laws  of  nature 
and  nations,  modified  by  the  civil  constitution  of  the 
colonizing  state.  In  the  administration  of  human 

o 

aftairs,  there  is,  in  all  countries,  a  reluctance  at  re 
curring  to  the  first  principles  of  government.  Prac 
tical  men  are  apt  to  entertain  the  opinion  that  thev 
have  little  influence  upon  the  conduct  of  nations, 


15 

and  theoretic  men  are  often  wild  and  fanciful  in  their 
application  of  them.  The  first  British  colonies 
upon  this  continent  were  settled  precisely  at  the 
time  when  the  English  nation  were  in  the  very  fever 
of  controversy  preceding  the  civil  wars.  Those  of 
New  England  were  settled  by  the  Puritans,  a  con 
scientious,  intrepid  and  persecuted  race  of  men,  whom 
David  Hume,  the  Atheist  Jacobite,  at  once  their  re- 
viler  and  their  eulogist,  acknowledges  to  have  been 
the  sole  and  exclusive  founders  of  all  the  freedom  of 
the  British  islands.  This  record  is  true,  and  oceans 
of  calumny  will  never  wash  it  out. 

In  their  emigration  from  Europe,  they  had  well 
considered  the  rights  to  which  they  would  be  enti 
tled  in  the  land  of  their  new  habitation,  and  the  obli 
gations  by  which  they  would  be  bound  to  the  land 
of  their  nativity.  They  retained  their  affection  for 
their  country,  and  acknowledged  their  allegiance  to 
the  sovereign  from  whom  they  had  received  their 
charters.  It  was  impossible,  however,  that  the  sen 
timent  of  local  patriotism  should  be  transmitted  to 
their  descendants,  with  the  same  intenseness  with 
which  they  had  felt  it  themselves ;  and  the  ties  of 
allegiance  to  a  sovereign  beyond  the  seas,  changing 
in  rapid  succession  from  a  Stuart  to  a  Common 
wealth,  from  a  Commonwealth  back  to  a  Stuart, 
then  to  a  William  of  Orange,  to  the  wife  of  a 
Prince  of  Denmark,  and  finally  to  a  family  and  na 
tive  of  Germany,  however  strong  as  political  liga 
ments,  by  the  unchangeable  laws  of  nature,  could 
not  have  a  very  tenacious  hold  upon  the  heart.  The 
Scottish  poet,  who  has  emblazoned  his  country  with 
such  a  resplendent  crown  of  glory,  and  has  arrayed 


16 

in  the  gorgeous  coloring  of  imagination  this  senti 
ment  of  patriotism,  supposes  it  to  burn  only  in  the 
bosom  of  him  who  in  colloquy  with  himself  can  ex 
claim, 

"  This  is  my  own,  my  native  land." 

But  to  what  land  would  this  exclamation,  so  na 
tural,  so  affecting,  so  pathetic,  have  applied  upon 
the  lips  of  Carver  and  Bradford,  of  Endicott  and  Win- 
throp  ?  Their  native  land  indeed  was  England :  but 
this  might  more  emphatically  be  termed  their  own 
land,  for  it  had  become  their  own  by  sacrifices,  dan 
gers,  and  toils.  And  what,  five  generations  later, 
would  have  been  the  purport  of  the  same  impressive 
line, 

"  This  is  my  own,  my  native  land," 

upon  the  lips  of  your  Quincy,  and  your  Hancock,  pa 
triots,  if  ever  the  name  existed  in  other  than  poetical 
imagery,  one  born  in"  the  metropolis  within  reach  of 
your  eyes,  and  the  other  within  hearing  distance  of 
the  voice,  which  now  joys  in  recalling  him  to  your 
memory,  as  your  native  townsman  and  his  own. 

The  dependence,  then,  of  the  Colonies  upon  Great 
Britain,  at  the  time  when  the  British  Parliament  de 
clared  its  own  right  to  make  laws  for  them  in  all 
cases  whatsoever,  and  undertook  to  give  effect  to 
this  declaration  by  taxation,  was  a  dependence  of 
parchments  and  of  proclamations,  unsanctioned  by 
the  laws  of  nature,  disavowed  by  the  dictates  of  rea 
son.  To  this  condition,  however,  the  Colonies  sub 
mitted  as  long  as  they  were  suffered  to  enjoy  the 
rights  of  Englishmen.  The  attempt  to  tax  them  by 
a  body  in  which  they  had  and  could  have  no  repre 
sentative,  was  in  direct  violation  of  those  rights.  The 


17 

acts  of  Parliament  were  encountered  by  remon 
strance,  deprecated  by  petition,  and  resisted  by  force. 
Ten  years  of  controversy,  and  more  than  one  of  civil 
war,  preceded  the  Declaration,  "  that  these  United 
Colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  free  and  in 
dependent  states  ;  that  they  are  absolved  from  all  al 
legiance  to  the  British  crown,  and  that  all  political 
connexion  between  them  and  the  state  of  Great 
Britain,  is,  and  ought  to  be  totally  dissolved." 

The  union  of  the  Colonies  had  preceded  this  De 
claration  and  even   the  commencement  of  the  war. 
The  Declaration  was  joint,  that  the  United  Colonies 
were  free  and  independent  states,  but  not  that  any 
one  of  them  was  a  free  and  independent  state,  sep 
arate  from  the  rest.     In  the  Constitution  of  this  Com 
monwealth  it  is  declared,   that   the  body  politic  is 
formed   by  a  voluntary   association   of  individuals; 
that  it  is  a  social  compact,  by  which  the  whole  peo 
ple  covenants  with   each  citizen,  and   each  citizen 
with  the  whole  people,  that  all  shall  be  governed  by 
certain  laws,  for   the  common  good.     The  body  po 
litic  of  the  United  States  was  formed  by  the  volun 
tary  association  of  the  people  of  the  United  Colonies. 
The  Declaration  of  Independence  was  a  social  com 
pact,  by  which  the  whole  people  covenanted  with 
each  citizen  of  the  United  Colonies,  and  each  citizen 
with  the  whole  people,  that  the  United    Colonies 
were,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  free  and  independent 
states.     To  this  compact,  union  was  as  vital  as  free 
dom   or  independence.     From  the  hour  of  that  De 
claration,  no  one   of  the    States  whose  people  were 
parties  to  it,  could,  without  violation  of  that  primitive 
3 


18 

compact,  secede  or  separate  from  the  rest.  Each  was 
pledged  to  all,  and  all  were  pledged  to  each  by  a 
concert  of  souls,  without  limitation  of  time,  in  the 
presence  of  Almighty  God,  and  proclaimed  to  all 
mankind.  The  Colonies  were  not  declared  sovereign 
states.  The  term  sovereign  is  not  even  to  be  found 
in  the  Declaration  ;  and  far,  very  far  was  it  from  the 
contemplation  of  those  who  composed,  or  of  those 
who  adopted  it,  to  constitute  either  the  aggregate  com 
munity,  or  any  one  of  its  members,  with  absolute,  un 
controllable  or  despotic  power.  They  are  united, 
free  and  independent  States.  Each  of  these  properties 
is  equally  essential  to  their  existence.  Without  union 
the  covenant  contains  no  pledge  of  freedom  or  inde 
pendence  ;  without  freedom,  none  of  independence 
or  union ;  without  independence,  none  of  union  or 
freedom. 

In  the  history  of  the  world,  this  was  the  first  exam 
ple  of  a  self-constituted  nation  proclaiming  to  the 
rest  of  mankind  the  principles  upon  which  it  was 
associated,  and  deriving  those  principles  from  the 
laws  of  nature.  It  has  sometimes  been  objected  to 
the  paper,  that  it  deals  too  much  in  abstractions. 
But  this  was  its  characteristic  excellence  ;  for  upon 
those  abstractions  hinged  the  justice  of  the  cause. 
Without  them,  our  revolution  would  have  been  but 
successful  rebellion.  Right,  truth,  justice,  are  all 
abstractions.  The  Divinity  that  stirs  within  the  soul 
of  man  is  abstraction.  The  Creator  of  the  universe 
is  a  spirit,  and  all  spiritual  nature  is  abstraction.  Hap 
py  would  it  be,  could  we  answer  with  equal  confi 
dence  another  objection,  not  to  the  Declaration,  but 
to  the  consistency  of  the  people  by  whom  it  was 


19 

proclaimed  !  Thrice  happy,  could  the  appeal  to  the 
Supreme  Judge  of  the  World  for  rectitude  of  inten 
tion,  and  with  firm  reliance  on  the  protection  of  Di 
vine  Providence  for  support,  have  been  accompanied 
with  an  appeal  equally  bold  to  our  own  social  insti 
tutions  to  illustrate  the  self-evident  truths  which  we 
declared  ! 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  was  not  a  de 
claration  of  liberty  newly  acquired,  nor  was  it  a  form 
of  government.  The  people  of  the  Colonies  were 
already  free,  and  their  forms  of  government  were 
various.  They  were  all  Colonies  of  a  monarchy. 
The  king  of  Great  Britain  was  their  common  sove 
reign.  Their  internal  administrations  presented  great 
varieties  of  form.  The  proprietary  governments 
were  hereditary  monarchies  in  miniature.  New  York 
and  Virginia  were  feudal  aristocracies.  Massachu 
setts  Bay  was  an  approximation  to  the  complex  gov 
ernment  of  the  parent  state.  Connecticut  and 
Rhode  Island  were  little  remote  from  democracies. 
But  as  in  the  course  of  our  recent  war  with  Great 
Britain,  her  gallant  naval  warriors  made  the  discove 
ry  that  the  frigates  of  the  United  States  were  line 
of  battle  ships  in  disguise,  so  the  ministers  of  George 
III.,  when  they  brought  their  king  and  country 
into  collision  w7ith  these  transatlantic  dependencies, 
soon  found  to  their  astonishment,  that  the  United 
American  Colonies  were  republics  in  disguise.  The 
spirit  of  the  people,  throughout  the  Union,  was  re 
publican  ;  and  the  absurdity  of  a  foreign  and  a  royal 
head  to  societies  of  men  thus  constituted,  had  remain 
ed  unperceived,  only  because  until  then  that  head 
had  been  seldom  brought  into  action. 


20 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  announced  the 
severance  of  the  thirteen  United  Colonies  from  the 
rest  of  the  British  Empire,  and  the  existence  of  their 
people  from  that  day  forth  as  an  independent  nation. 
The  people  of  all  the  Colonies,  speaking  by  their  re 
presentatives,  constituted  themselves  one  moral  per 
son  before  the  face  of  their  fellow  men.  Frederic 
I.,  of  Brandenburg,  constituted  himself  king  of 
Prussia,  by  putting  a  crown  upon  his  own  head. 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  invested  his  brows  with  the  iron 
crown  of  Lombardy,  and  declared  himself  king  of 
Italy.  The  Declaration  of  Independence  was  the 
crown  with  which  the  people  of  United  America, 
rising  in  gigantic  stature  as  one  man,  encircled  their 
brows,  and  there  it  remains ;  there,  so  long  as  this 
globe  shall  be  inhabited  by  human  beings,  may  it  re 
main,  a  crown  of  imperishable  glory  ! 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  asserted  the 
rights,  and  acknowledged  the  obligations  of  an 
independent  nation.  It  recognised  the  laws  of  na 
tions,  as  they  were  observed  and  practised  among 
Christian  communities.  It  considered  the  state  of 
nature  between  nations  as  a  state  of  peace ;  and,  as 
a  necessary  consequence,  that  the  new  confederacy 
was  at  peace  with  all  other  nations,  Great  Britain 
alone  excepted.  It  made  no  change  in  the  laws — 
none  in  the  internal  administration  of  any  one  of  the 
confederates,  other  than  such  as  necessarily  followed 
from  the  dissolution  of  the  connexion  with  Great 
Britain.  It  left  all  municipal  legislation,  all  regula 
tion  of  private  individual  rights  and  interests,  to  the 
people  of  each  separate  Colony  ;  and  each  separate 


21 

Colony,  thus  transformed  into  a  State  of  the  Union, 
wrought  for  itself  a  constitution  of  government. 

There  remained  to  be  formed  a  confederate  gov 
ernment  for  the  whole  Union ;  and  of  this,  an  abor 
tive  experiment  was  made  by  the  co-operation  of 
Congress  with  the  State  Legislatures,  without  re 
currence  to  the  fountain  of  power,  the  people.  This 
error  proved  well  nigh  fatal  to  the  Union,  and  to  the 
liberties  of  the  whole.  It  palsied  in  a  great  degree 
the  subsequent  operations  of  the  war ;  it  prostrated 
the  faith  and  energy  of  the  nation  in  peace  ;  it  be 
came  a  source  of  impotence  in  all  the  relations  of  the 
country  with  foreign  powers ;  of  mutual  irritation, 
discord  and  anarchy  at  home.  It  disabled  the  na 
tion  from  the  performance  of  its  engagements  to  oth 
ers,  and  from  the  means  of  exacting  the  fulfilment  of 
theirs  in  return.  It  degraded  the  country  in  the  eyes 
of  the  world,  and  disgraced  the  glorious  cause  in 
which  our  national  independence  had  been  achieved. 
It  embittered  the  hearts,  and  armed  the  hands  of  our 
citizens  against  one  another,  till  our  judicial  tribunals 
were  sullied  with  trials  for  treason,  and  our  legislative 
records  blackened  with  proclamations  of  rebellion. 

In  our  own  Commonwealth,  the  blood  of  her  citizens 
was  shed  by  each  other,  on  the  field  of  battle,  and 
the  scaffold  thirsted  for  that  of  her  children.  Never, 
even  during  the  gloomiest  moments  of  the  revolu 
tionary  war,  had  the  condition  of  the  country  been 
so  calamitous  as  in  the  years  immediately  succeeding 
the  peace,  in  the  very  triumph  of  our  cause,  and  in  the 
full  and  undisputed  enjoyment  of  our  independence. 

The  primary  cause  of  all  these  misfortunes  and  all 
these  crimes,  was  the  same  mistaken  estimate  of 


22 

sovereignty  which  the  British  Parliament  had  made, 
when  they  undertook  to  levy  money  upon  the  Col 
onies  by  taxation.  The  separate  States  of  the  Union, 
using  a  term  which  appears  to  have  been  studiously 
avoided  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  declared 
themselves,  not  only  free  and  independent,  but  sove 
reign  States  ; — and  then  their  lawyers,  adopting  the 
doctrine  of  Blackstone,  the  oracle  of  English  law,  in 
ferred  that  sovereign  must  necessarily  be  uncontrolla 
ble,  unlimited,  despotic  power.  Assuming,  like  the 
eminent  commentator,  that  in  all  governments  this 
power  must  exist  somewhere,  and  that  it  is  inherent 
in  the  very  definition  of  sovereignty,  with  about  as 
much  plausibility  as  he  deposits  it  in  the  British 
Parliament,  they  made  no  hesitation  to  entrust  it  to 
the  governments  of  the  separate  States. 

It  were  an  abuse  of  your  time  and  patience,  fellow 
citizens,  to  recall  to  your  memory  all  the  vagaries 
into  which  this  political  sophism  of  identity  between 
sovereign  and  despotic  power,  has  led,  and  continues 
to  lead,  some  of  the  Statists  of  this  our  happy  but  dis 
putatious  Union.  It  seizes  upon  the  brain  of  a  heat 
ed  politician  sometimes  in  one  State,  sometimes  in 
another,  and  its  natural  offspring  is  the  doctrine  of 
nullification ; — that  is,  the  sovereign  power  of  any 
one  State  of  the  confederacy  to  nullify  any  act  of 
the  whole  twenty-four  States,  w^hich  the  sovereign 
State  shall  please  to  consider  as  unconstitutional ; — 
an  error  sustained  by  reasoners  too  respectable  to  be 
treated  with  derision,  and,  apart  from  that  considera 
tion,  too  absurd  to  be  encountered  with  serious  argu 
ment.  Even  under  our  present  Federal  Constitution, 
it  has  been  directly  asserted,  or  imprudently  counte- 


23 

nanced,  at  one  time  in  Virginia  and  Kentucky,  at 
another  in  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  now  in 
the  temperate  climate  of  Pennsylvania,  and  again  in 
the  warmer  regions  of  the  South.  Fortunate  has  it 
been  for  our  country,  that  the  paroxysms  of  this  fever 
have  hitherto  proved  not  extensively  contagious  !  But 
we  are  admonished  by  one  of  the  profoundest  philo 
sophers  of  modern  ages,*  not  to  measure  the  danger 
of  discontentments  in  the  body  politic  by  this, — wheth 
er  they  be  just  or  unjust;  nor  yet  by  this,  whether 
the  griefs  whereupon  they  rise,  be  great  or  small — 
neither  to  be  secure,  because  they  have  been  often 
or  long,  without  ensuing  peril.  Not  every  fume  or 
vapor  turns  indeed  to  a  storm,  but  from  vapors  and 
exhalations  imperceptibly  gathered,  the  tempest  of 
desolation  does  come  at  last. 

It  was  this  hallucination  of  State  sovereignty,  iden 
tified  with  unlimited  power,  which  blasted  the  Con 
federation  from  its  birth.  The  delegates  in  Con 
gress  were  representatives  of  the  State  Legislatures ; 
for  as  such  only  they  acted  in  the  formation  of  the 
articles  of  confederation.  The  State  Legislatures 
were  representatives  of  the  people  of  each  separate 
State.  Between  these  two  representative  bodies, 
primary  and  secondary,  of  the  same  parties,  a  Con 
federation  was  elaborated  for  the  whole  Union,  mem 
orable  only  for  its  impotence. 

It  was  formed  by  many  of  the  same  pure  and  ex 
alted  patriots,  who  had  pledged  their  lives,  their  for 
tunes,  and  their  sacred  honor,  to  the  independence  of 
their  country.  It  was  made  with  long,  painful  and 

*  Lord  Bacon. 


24 

anxious  deliberation,  animated  with  the  most  ardent 
love  of  liberty,  purified  with  perfect  disinterestedness, 
and  digested  with  consummate  ability.  It  was  a 
bloodless  corpse !  Fire  from  Heaven  alone  could 
have  given  it  life  ;  and  that  fire,  unduly  sought,  brought 
with  it  Pandora  and  her  box.  In  the  establishment 
of  the  Confederation  the  people  of  the  whole  Union 
had  no  part.  It  was  an  alliance  of  States,  intent 
above  all  things  to  preserve  their  sovereignly  entire ; 
averse  above  all  things  to  confer  power,  because 
power  might  be  abused  ;  and  also  because  they  per 
ceived  that  every  grant  of  power  to  the  confederate 
body  could  be  made  only  by  the  relinquishment  of 
their  own.  These,  however,  were  errors,  not  of  inten 
tion,  nor  even  of  judgment  so  much  as  of  inexperience. 
The  Union  was  a  novelty.  Self-government  was  an 
innovation.  The  idea  of  recurring  to  the  people  of 
the  Union  for  a  constitution,  does  not  appear  to  have 
presented  itself  then  to  any  mind.  Yet  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  had  been  issued  in  the  name 
and  by  the  authority  of  the  whole  people.  The  total 
inefficiency  of  the  Confederation  to  fulfil  any  of  the 
good  offices  for  which  it  was  intended,  reinspired  the 
idea  of  recurring  to  the  first  source  of  all  political 
power,  the  people. 

Thus  rose  to  birth  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  under  which  we  yet  live.  It  was  formed  by 
a  Convention  of  Delegates,  appointed  by  the  Legis 
latures  of  the  respective  States,  upon  a  recommenda 
tion  of  Congress,  under  a  profound  conviction  of  its 
own  incompetency  to  administer  the  affairs  of  the 
Union,  either  at  home  or  abroad.  The  work  of  the 
Convention,  when  completed,  was  by  their  President, 


25 

Washington,  transmitted  to  Congress ;  and  by  them 
to  the  Legislatures  of  the  several  States.  These, 
without  undertaking  to  decide  upon  it  themselves,  re 
ferred  it  back  to  the  people,  by  whom  it  was  sanc 
tioned  through  the  medium  of  Conventions  specially 
elected  in  every  State,  who,  after  long  investiga 
tion,  and  severe  scrutiny,  accepted,  adopted,  and 
made  it  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  anything  in 
the  constitution  or  laws  of  any  State  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding. 

In  the  formation  of  Constitutions  for  the  several 
States,  similar  errors  of  inexperience  were  commit 
ted.     The  Constitutions  were  all  republican,  all  popu 
lar — not  monarchical — not  military.  An  article  amen 
datory  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  de 
clares  that  the  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United 
States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the 
States,  are  reserved  to  the  States  respectively,  or  to  the 
people.     There  are  powers,  then,  powers  of  govern 
ment,  reserved  to   the  people,  and  which  never  have 
been  delegated   either  to  the  United  or  to  the  sepa 
rate  States ;  nor  do  the  United  States,  nor  the  sepa 
rate   States  possess   any  powers,    not  delegated  to 
them  by   the  people — by  the  people  of  the  whole 
Union  to  the   United  States — by  the  people  of  each 
separate  State  to  that  State.     Hence  it  follows,  too, 
that  the  people  of  each  State  were  incompetent  to  del 
egate  to  the  State,  any  power  already  delegated  by 
the  people  of  the  whole  Union  to  the  United  States. 
It  was  the  people  of  the  whole  Union,  who  had  de 
clared  the  United   Colonies  free   and   independent 
States.     But  those  States  possessed  no  powers  but 
4 


26 

such  as  has  been  delegated  to  the  Colonies  by  their 
charters,  or  as,  after  their  becoming  States,  were  del 
egated  to  them  by  the  people.     There  was  no  such 
thing  in  their  constitutions  as  an  absolute,  irresistible, 
despotic  power,  lurking  somewhere  under  the  cabalis 
tic  denomination   of  sovereignty.     In  some   of  the 
States,  the  people  thought  it  unnecessary  to  form  new 
Constitutions.     They  abided  by  the  forms  of  govern 
ment  established  by  their  charters.     In  one,  the  ordi 
nary  Legislature  of  the  State  modified  their  govern 
ment  without  consulting  the  people  ; — an  usurpation 
sanctioned  by  the  acquiescence  of  the  people,  until  a 
very  recent  day,  but  now  rectified.     Of  those  which 
did  form  Constitutions  during  the  revolutionary  war, 
every  one,  New  Jersey  perhaps  excepted,  has  within 
the  first  half  century  found  a  revisal  of  its  own  neces 
sary.    New  powers  have  from  time  to  time  been  dele 
gated  by  the  people  of  each  State  to  their   govern 
ment  ;  powers  previously  delegated  have  been  annul 
led  :    but  in  vain  would  you  search  all  the  Constitu 
tions  past  or  present  of  the  States,  for  a  power  to 
nullify  any  act  of  the  United  States  in  Congress  as 
sembled.     The  people  of  no  State  were  competent 
to  grant  such  a  power.     The  pretence  to  grant  it 
would  itself  have  been  null  and  void — a  violation  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States;  a  violation 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

The  most  momentous  error  committed  in  the  for 
mation  of  several  of  the  first  State  Constitutions,  was 
the  establishment  of  the  legislative  power  in  a  single 
assembly  of  the  representatives  of  the  people.  In 
the  true  theory  of  republican  government,  all  the  pub 
lic  functionaries  are  representatives  of  the  people, 


27 

proxies  to  perform  the  will,  and  give  action  to  the 
power,  of  the  community.  To  mere  theorists  in  the 
construction  of  the  social  edifice,  there  is  no  idea  so 
seducing  as  that  of  simplicity.  Now  the  simplest  of 
all  forms  of  representative  government  would  be,  that 
all  the  officers  of  the  State  should  at  short  intervals 
of  time  be  chosen  by  majorities  of  the  people ;  and 
that  all  the  powers  of  government  should  be  exercised 
by  one  elected  body  of  men.  This  system  was,  how 
ever,  never  proposed  by  any  one  in  the  United  States. 
The  division  of  the  offices  of  government  into  legis 
lative,  executive,  and  judicial,  had  been  long  establish 
ed  in  the  British  Colonies,  though  not  very  effectively 
settled  in  their  organization.  At  the  time  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  Montesquieu  was  one 
of  the  most  recent  and  esteemed  writers  upon  gov 
ernment,  and  he  had  shown  the  division  of  powers 
to  be  essentially  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  lib 
erty.  Legislation,  however,  being  merely  the  expres 
sion  of  the  will  of  the  community,  is  an  operation  so 
simple  in  its  nature,  that  inexperienced  reason  cannot 
easily  perceive  the  necessity  of  committing  it  to  two 
bodies  of  men,  each  having  a  decisive  check  upon  the 
action  of  the  other.  At  the  first  formation  of  our 
State  Constitutions  it  was  made  a  question  of  tran 
scendent  importance,  and  divided  the  opinions  of  our 
most  eminent  men.  All  the  arguments  derived  from 
the  analogy  between  the  movements  of  political  bodies, 
and  the  operations  of  physical  nature ;  all  the  im 
pulses  of  political  parsimony;  all  the  prejudices  against 
a  second  co-ordinate  legislative  assembly,  stimulated 
by  the  exemplification  of  it  in  the  British  Parliament, 
were  against  a  division  of  the  legislative  power.  In 


28 

several  of  the  States  the  force  of  these  arguments 
was  found  irresistible.  Pennsylvania  was  told,  that  a 
legislature  in  two  branches  was  a  wagon  drawn  by 
a  horse  before  and  a  horse  behind,  in  opposite  direc 
tions  ;  and  she  invested  a  single  assembly  with  her 
legislative  authority.  Other  States  were  actuated 
by  the  same  image  or  by  others  equally  plausible  ; 
and  a  European  philosophical  statesman,  once  reputed 
profound,  expressed,  in  his  private  and  confidential 
correspondence  with  another,  his  dissatisfaction  that 
most  of  the  American  States  had  confided  their  legis 
lation  to  two  concurrent  bodies,  instead  of  depositing 
all  their  authority  in  one  centre,  and  that  centre  the 
nation. 

The  experience  of  a  very  few  years  brought  back 
all  the  members  of  the  confederacy  who  had  tried  the 
experiment  of  the  wagon  with  a  single  horse,  to  the 
team  tackled  with  a  pair  ;  and,  as  it  was  not  found 
necessary  to  tackle  them  in  front  and  rear  of  the  car 
riage,  they  have  seldom  manifested  a  disposition  to 
draw  in  opposite  directions,  and  never  so  obstinately 
as  to  arrest  the  progress  of  the  car.  When  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  United  States  came  to  be  formed,  the 
problem  was  sufficiently  solved  to  settle  opinions  on 
this  continent ;  and  riot  a  solitary  voice  was  heard  to 
propose  that  the  legislative  power  of  the  Union  should 
be  vested  in  a  single  assembly. 

This  Constitution,  rising  from  the  ashes  of  the  first 
experimental  and  imbecile  Confederacy,  has  now  been 
in  successful  operation  upwards  of  forty  years.  It 
has  undergone,  since  its  first  establishment,  very  few, 
and,  comparatively  speaking,  unimportant  alterations. 
It  has  passed  through  the  ordeal  of  six  successive  ad- 


29 

ministrations ;  and  is  at  this  time  in  the  hands  of  a 
seventh.  It  has  stood  the  test  of  one  formidable 
foreign  war,  and  of  two  apparent  changes  of  princi 
ple,  effected  by  the  conflict  of  parties,  but  resulting 
in  no  material  change  of  the  Constitution;  and  none 
in  the  administration  itself,  affecting  in  any  percepti 
ble  degree  the  interest  of  the  nation.  It  was  origin 
ally  the  work  of  the  party  denominated  Federal,  in 
opposition  to  that  party  which  adhered  with  the  most 
tenacious  inflexibility  to  the  unlimited  sovereignty  of 
the  separate  States.  The  administration  of  the  gen 
eral  government,  however,  has  been  alternately  con 
fided  to  individuals  attached  to  the  one  and  the  other 
of  those  parties  ;  and  it  is  a  circumstance  which  will 
not  escape  the  observation  of  a  philosophical  historian, 
that  the  constructive  powers  of  the  national  govern 
ment  have  been  stretched  to  their  extremes!  tension 
by  that  party  when  in  power,  which  has  been  most 
tenderly  scrupulous  of  the  State  sovereignty,  when 
uninvested  with  the  authority  of  the  Union  themselves. 
Of  these  inconsistencies  our  two  great  parties  can 
have  little  to  say  in  reproof  of  each  other.  The 
charge  on  either  side  can  be  much  more  easily  retort 
ed  than  repelled.  Our  collisions  of  principle  have 
been  little,  very  little  more  than  conflicts  for  place  ; 
and  in  the  mean  time  the  nation  has  been  advancing, 
with  gigantic  strides,  in  population,  wealth  and  power. 
That  this  has  been,  under  the  blessing  of  Providence, 
the  result  of  the  system,  no  one  can  doubt  who  will 
compare  the  condition  of  the  country  under  the  Con 
federacy  of  State  sovereignties,  and  under  the  Consti 
tution  ordained  by  the  people  of  the  United  States. 
Yet  no  one  of  the  administrations  of  the  general  gov- 


so 

eminent  has  ever  given  entire  satisfaction  to  the 
whole  people.  Partial  discontents  have  at  different 
times  been  prevalent  in  different  portions  of  the  Union ; 
and  the  degree  of  inflammation  with  which  they  have 
raged,  has  seldom  been  proportioned  to  the  magnitude 
of  their  exciting  causes.  Washington's  administra 
tion  encountered  an  insurrection  in  arms.  His  im 
mediate  successor  was  upbraided  for  sparing  the  life 
of  a  convict  for  treason.  Many  attempts  have  been 
made  to  array  separate,  and  even  combined  State  sov 
ereignties,  against  the  government  and  laws  of  the 
Union ;  and  even  at  this  day,  the  people  of  twenty- 
three  of  our  States  might  shudder  at  the  imminent 
danger  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  but  for  the  an 
ticipation  that  the  most  ardent  instigators  to  that 
catastrophe  at  this  time,  may,  on  recovery  from  the 
angry  passions  by  which  they  are  stimulated,  erase 
from  their  own  memories,  and  strive  to  expunge  from 
those  of  others,  the  records  of  their  delusion ;  won 
der  that  they  should  ever  have  been  suspected  of  dis 
loyalty  to  the  Union,  for  which  even  now  they  pro 
fess  an  affectionate  regard  ;  and,  if  their  words  and 
deeds  should  be  too  faithfully  remembered  by  their 
country,  recur  to  the  acknowledgement  of  the  poet, 
arid  exclaim, 

"  We  angry  lovers  mean  not  half  we  say." 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  the  present,  or  any 
future  administration,  will  ever  prove  satisfactory  at 
once  to  the  whole  people.  A  condition  of  relative 
comfort  and  happiness  is  all  that  the  lot  of  mankind 
upon  earth  can  attain  ;  and  if  a  denizen  of  the  North 
American  Union  would  form  a  candid  estimate  of 
the  good  and  evil  of  his  own  destiny,  let  him  com- 


31 

pare  it  with  that  of  any  other  inhabitant  of  the  globe  ; 
or,  contracting  the  comparison  to  that  of  the  civ 
ilized  and  Christian  portion  of  the  earth,  let  him  look 
abroad  among  the  nations  of  Europe,  and  of  their  de 
scendants  in  our  own  hemisphere, — the  portions  of 
mankind  whose  opinions  and  feelings  and  fortunes 
have  been  most  deeply  agitated  and  extensively  in 
fluenced  by  the  principles  proclaimed  in  our  Declara 
tion  of  Independence, — and  draw  an  impartial  parallel 
between  their  condition  and  our  own. 

The  first  of  the  European  nations,  which  followed 
us  in  the  revolutionary  career,  was  France.  Her 
government  wras  an  absolute  monarchy.  The  un 
controlled,  irresistible,  despotic  power,  which,  Black- 
stone  and  the  jurists  of  the  English  school  insist, 
must  in  every  government  reside  somewhere,  was  in 
France  vested  in  the  person  of  the  king.  There  was 
indeed  an  obsolete  record  of  a  constitution ;  an  as 
sembly  of  the  States  General  in  three  orders,  no 
bles,  clergy  and  commons  or  third  estate,  which 
wore  the  semblance  of  a  representation  of  the  people. 

The  very  same  year  when  the  present  government 
of  the  United  States  was  first  organized,  this  uncon 
trolled  monarch  was  compelled  to  call  an  assembly 
of  the  States  General,  a  body  which  had  not  been 
permitted  to  meet  before  for  nearly  two  hundred 
years.  And  this  body  did  then  no  sooner  assemble, 
than,  under  the  influence  of  the  principles  promul 
gated  by  our  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  third 
estate,  or  popular  representation,  assumed  the  supreme 
power  to  themselves,  constrained  the  two  other  or 
ders  of  nobles  and  clergy  to  unite  with  them  in  a 
self-constituted  National  Assembly,  abolished  the 


32 

monarchy,  and,  under  the  name  of  a  royal  democra 
cy,  fabricated  in  the  space  of  two  years  the  first  of 
a  succession  of  constitutions,  which  now,  at  the  end 
of  forty  years  after  that  event,  they  are  still  making 
and  mending  with  enthusiasm  scarcely  less  ardent 
than  when  they  first  began.  In  the  mean  time  they 
have  been  scourged  with  five  and  twenty  years  of 
civil  and  of  foreign  war ;  have  inflicted  on  most  of 
the  other  European  nations,  and  suffered  themselves, 
all  the  miseries  and  humiliations  of  conquest ;  have 
shed  rivers  of  blood  upon  the  scaffold  ;  have  ranged 
through  all  the  extremes  of  popular  anarchy  and  of 
military  despotism ;  have  beheaded,  proscribed,  re 
called,  reinstated,  and  expelled  again  the  family  of 
their  ancient  kings ;  and  now  acknowledge  a  colla 
teral  member  of  the  same  family  as  their  hereditary 
sovereign.  It  is  obvious  that  the  career  of  revolu 
tion  there  is  not  yet  closed.  Throughout  all  these 
changes,  the  principles  proclaimed  in  our  Declaration 
of  Independence,  often  overwhelmed  by  physical 
power,  cowering  under  the  swrord  of  the  soldier, 
withering  under  the  imperial  sceptre,  laughed  to 
scorn  by  the  moral  lectures  of  a  foreign  field  mar 
shal,  and  trampled  in  the  dust  by  the  heel  of  the 
Cossack,  have  never  been  effectively  subdued.  They 
have  always  re-emerged  from  the  pressure  to  keep 
them  down,  as  if  destined,  like  the  immortal  soul  of 
man,  to  survive  the  ruins  of  creation. 

Fellow  Citizens,  I  trespass  upon  the  indulgence 
that  I  have  invoked.  Time  fails  me  to  pass  in  review 
the  experiences  of  the  other  nations  of  the  European 
continent,  which,  in  the  last  half  century,  have  been, 
and  yet  are,  convulsed  with  the  revolutionary  spirit. 


33 

In  comparing  their  history  during  this  period  with 
our  own,  there  is  one  point  of  difference  between 
them,  on  which  our  attention  cannot  be  too  intense 
ly  rivetted.  Our  Declaration  of  Independence,  our 
Confederation,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  all  our  State  Constitutions,  without  a  single  ex 
ception,  have  been  voluntary  compacts,  deriving  all 
their  authority  from  the  free  consent  of  the  parties 
to  them.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  a  single  con 
stitution  has  been  formed  in  Europe  or  in  Southern 
America,  without  some  violence,  some  admixture 
of  conflicting  physical  force  in  its  confection.  In  the 
early  and  significant  age  of  the  ancient  mythology, 
the  god  of  boundaries  was  the  only  deity  never  to  be 
propitiated  by  sacrifices  of  blood.  He,  too,  was  the 
only  god  who  refused  to  yield  his  place,  even  to  Ju 
piter.  Here  is  the  land-mark,  bloodless  and  im- 
moveable,  more  unerring  than  the  magnet  from  the 
pole,  firm  as  the  everlasting  hills,  between  freedom 
and  force.  It  is  not  in  the  proclamation  of  princi 
ples.  Declarations  of  the  rights  of  man,  as  full,  as 
copious,  as  formal  as  our  own,  have  decorated  the 
constitutions  of  Europe.  Those  constitutions,  after 
a  short  and  fitful  existence,  have  passed  into  the  me 
mory  of  things  beyond  the  flood  ;  leaving  the  princi 
ples  behind — blood-stained  and  defaced — monuments 
only  of  their  own  mutilation.  We  have  proclaimed 
the  principles,  we  have  adhered  to  the  practice; 
and  our  history  has  been  a  record  of  internal  peace 
and  general  prosperity  almost  uninterrupted.  Let 
the  contemplation  of  the  past,  be  the  instructive  les 
son  of  the  future.  And  in  this  connexion  let  us 
5 


34 

survey  with  calm,  unblenching  eye  the  newly  reviv 
ed  doctrine  of  nullification ;  a  word  which  contains 
within  itself  an  absurdity,  importing  a  pretended 
right  of  one  State  in  this  Union,  by  virtue  of  her 
sovereignty,  to  make  that  null  and  void,  which  it  pre 
supposes  to  be  null  and  void  before.  The  doctrine  is 
not  new,  nor  are  those  who  now  maintain  it  respon 
sible  for  its  introduction.  It  has  been  the  vital  dis 
ease  of  confederacies  from  the  day  when  Philip  of 
Macedon  obtained  a  seat  among  the  Amphyctions 
of  Greece.  It  has  never  been,  perhaps,  involved  in 
quite  so  much  absurdity,  as  when  appearing  in  its 
newest  shape.  It  is  now  the  claim  for  one  State  of 
this  Union,  by  virtue  of  her  sovereignty,  not  only  to 
make,  but  to  unmake  the  laws  of  the  twenty-four, 
each  equally  sovereign  with  herself.  This  claim  in 
its  extent  is  most  emphatically  illustrated  by  its  ap 
plication  to  a  revenue  law.  The  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  declares  that  all  duties,  imposts,  and 
excises  shall  be  uniform  throughout  the  United  States. 
It  forbids  any  preference  to  be  given,  by  any  regula 
tion  of  commerce  or  revenue,  to  the  ports  of  one  State 
over  those  fo  another.  The  claim  for  the  sovereign 
State  is  to  nullify  these  provisions  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  indissolubly  connected  with  all  the  acts  of  Con 
gress  for  raising  revenue.  The  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  in  express  terms,  supersedes  all  State 
Constitutions  and  laws  conflicting  with  it.  The  sov 
ereign  State  claims  by  her  laws  to  supersede  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  the  laws  of 
all  the  other  States  in  the  Union.  As  a  member  of 
the  Union,  this  advances  a  claim  of  appeal  from  the 
whole  to  a  twenty-fourth  part.  As  a  sovereign  State, 


35 

a  claim  to  make  laws,  not  only  for  herself,  but  for 
others.  Philosophically,  politically,  morally  con 
sidered,  it  is  an  inversion  of  all  human  reasoning  ;  it 
cannot  be  conceived  without  confusion  of  thought ; 
it  cannot  be  expressed  without  solecism  of  language, 
and  terms  of  self-contradiction. 

Its  most  hideous  aspect  is,  not  that  its  practical 
operation  must  issue  in  a  severance  of  the  Union, 
but  that  it  substitutes  physical  force  in  the  place  of 
deliberate  legislation.  Stripped  of  the  sophistical 
argumentation  in  which  this  doctrine  has  been  habi 
ted,  its  naked  nature  is  an  effort  to  organize  insurrec 
tion  against  the  laws  of  the  United  States;  to  inter 
pose  the  arm  of  State  sovereignty  between  rebellion 
and  the  halter,  and  to  rescue  the  traitor  from  the 
gibbet.  The  plan  which  it  proposes,  if  pursued  by 
merely  individual  association,  would  be  levying  war 
against  the  United  States.  It  would  not  the  less  be 
levying  war  against  the  Union,  if  conducted  under 
the  auspkes  of  State  sovereignty ;  but  as  a  State 
cannot  be  punished  for  treason,  Nullification  wrould 
case  herself  in  the  complete  steel  of  sovereign  power, 
as  the  heroes  of  ancient  poetry  were  furnished  with 
panoply  from  the  armory  of  the  gods. 

You  have  seen,  my  fellow  citizens,  from  the  De 
claration  of  Independence,  that  the  States  of  this 
confederation  were  the  offspring  of  the  Union ;  that 
their  sovereignty  is  not,  and  never  was,  a  sovereignty 
as  defined  by  Blackstone  and  the  English  lawyers, 
identical  with  unlimited  power ;  that  sovereignty, 
thus  defined,  is  in  direct  contradiction  to  the  Decla 
ration  of  Independence,  and  incompatible  with  the 
nature  of  our  institutions  ;  that  the  States,  united, 


36 

and  the  States,  separate,  are  both  sovereign,  but 
creatures  of  the  people,  and  possess  none  but  dele 
gated  powers  ;  that  the  power  of  nullifying  an  act  of 
Congress,  never  has  been  delegated  to  any  one 
State,  or  to  any  partial  combination  of  States,  and 
that  any,  and  every  attempt  at  such  nullification,  by 
one  or  more  States,  less  than  the  number  required, 
and  otherwise  than  in  the  forms  prescribed  for 
amendment  of  the  Constitution,  would,  however  col 
ored,  and  however  varnished,  be  neither  more  nor 
less  than  treason,  skulking  under  the  shelter  of 
despotism. 

Nullification  is  the  provocative  to  that  brutal  and 
foul  contest  of  force,  which  has  hitherto  baffled  all 
the  efforts  of  the  European,  and  Southern  American 
nations,  to  introduce  among  them  constitutional  gov 
ernments  of  liberty  and  order.  It  strips  us  of  that 
peculiar  and  unimitated  characteristic  of  all  our 
legislation — free  debate.  It  makes  the  bayonet  the 
arbiter  of  law  ;  it  has  no  argument  but  the  thunder 
bolt.  It  were  senseless  to  imagine  that  twenty-three 
States  of  the  Union  would  suffer  their  laws  to  be 
trampled  upon  by  the  despotic  mandate  of  one. 
The  act  of  nullification  would  itself  be  null  and  void. 
Force  must  be  called  in  to  execute  the  law  of  the 
Union.  Force  must  be  applied  by  the  nullifying 
State  to  resist  its  execution — 

"  Ate,  hot  from  Hell, 
"  Cries,  Havoc !  and  lets  slip  the  dogs  of  war." 

The  blood  of  brethren  is  shed  by  each  other.  The 
citizen  of  the  nullifying  State  is  a  traitor  to  his 
country,  by  obedience  to  the  law  of  his  State ;  a 
traitor  to  his  State,  by  obedience  to  the  law  of  his 


37 

country.  The  scaffold  and  the  battle-field  stream 
alternately  with  the  blood  of  their  victims.  Let  this 
agent  but  once  intrude  upon  your  deliberations,  and 
Freedom  will  take  her  flight  for  heaven.  The  De 
claration  of  Independence  will  become  a  philosophical 
dream,  and  uncontrolled,  despotic  sovereignties  will 
trample  with  impunity,  through  a  long  career  of  after 
ages,  at  interminable  or  exterminating  war  with 
one  another,  upon  the  indefeasible  and  unalienable 
rights  of  man. 

o 

The  event  of  a  conflict  in  arms,  between  the 
Union  and  one  of  its  members,  whether  terminating 
in  victory  or  defeat,  would  be  but  an  alternative  of 
calamity  to  all.  In  the  holy  records  of  antiquity,  we 
have  two  examples  of  a  confederation  ruptured  by 
the  severance  of  its  members  ;  one  of  which  resulted, 
after  three  desperate  battles,  in  the  extermination  of 
the  seceding  tribe.  And  the  victorious  people,  in 
stead  of  exulting  in  shouts  of  triumph,  "came  to  the 
House  of  God,  and  abode  there  till  even  before  God  ; 
and  lifted  up  their  voices,  and  wept  sore,  and  said, — 
O  Lord  God  of  Israel,  why  is  this  come  to  pass  in 
Israel,  that  there  should  be  to-day  one  tribe  lacking 
in  Israel  ? "  The  other  was  a  successful  example 
of  resistance  against  tyrannical  taxation,  and  severed 
forever  the  confederacy,  the  fragments  forming  sep 
arate  kingdoms ;  and  from  that  day,  their  history 
presents  an  unbroken  series  of  disastrous  alliances, 
and  exterminating  wars — of  assassinations,  conspira 
cies,  revolts,  and  rebellions,  until  both  parts  of  the 
confederacy  sunk  in  tributary  servitude  to  the  nations 
around  them ;  till  the  countrymen  of  David  and 
Solomon  hung  their  harps  upon  the  willows  of  Baby- 


38 

Ion,  and  were  totally  lost  amidst  the  multitudes  of 
the  Chaldean  and  Assyrian  monarchies,  "  the  most 
despised  portion  of  their  slaves."* 

In  these  mournful  memorials  of  their  fate,  we  may 
behold  the  sure,  too  sure  prognostication  of  our  own, 
from  the  hour  when  force  shall  be  substituted  for 
deliberation  in  the  settlement  of  our  Constitutional 
questions.  This  is  the  deplorable  alternative — the 
extirpation  of  the  seceding  member,  or  the  never 
ceasing  struggle  of  two  rival  confederacies,  ultimately 
bending  the  neck  of  both  under  the  yoke  of  foreign 
domination,  or  the  despotic  sovereignty  of  a  conqueror 
at  home.  May  Heaven  avert  the  omen  !  The  desti 
nies,  not  only  of  our  posterity,  but  of  the  human  race, 
are  at  stake. 

Let  no  such  melancholy  forebodings  intrude  upon 
the  festivities  of  this  anniversary.  Serene  skies  and 
balmy  breezes  are  not  congenial  to  the  climate  of 
freedom.  Progressive  improvement  in  the  condition 
of  man  is  apparently  the  purpose  of  a  superintending 
Providence.  That  purpose  will  not  be  disappointed. 
In  no  delusion  of  national  vanity,  but  with  a  feeling 
of  profound  gratitude  to  the  God  of  our  Fathers,  let 
us  indulge  the  cheering  hope  and  belief,  that  our  coun 
try  and  her  people  have  been  selected  as  instruments 
for  preparing  and  maturing  much  of  the  good  yet  in 
reserve  for  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  the  human 
race.  Much  good  has  already  been  effected  by  the 
solemn  proclamation  of  our  principles,  much  more  by 
the  illustration  of  our  example.  The  tempest  which 
threatens  desolation,  may  be  destined  only  to  purify 
the  atmosphere.  It  is  not  in  tranquil  ease  and  en- 

*  Tacitus  and  Gibbon. 


39 

joyment  that  the  active  energies  of  mankind  are  dis 
played.  Toils  and  dangers  are  the  trials  of  the  soul. 
Doomed  to  the  first  by  his  sentence  at  the  fall,  man, 
by  submission,  converts  them  into  pleasures.  The 
last  are  since  the  fall  the  condition  of  his  existence. 
To  see  them  in  advance,  to  guard  against  them  by  all 
the  suggestions  of  prudence,  to  meet  them  with  the 
composure  of  unyic elding  resistance,  and  to  abide 
with  firm  resignation  the  final  dispensation  of  Him 
who  rules  the  ball, — these  are  the  dictates  of  philoso 
phy — these  are  the  precepts  of  religion — these  are  the 
principles  and  consolations  of  patriotism  ; — these  re 
main  when  all  is  lost — and  of  these  is  composed  the 
spirit  of  independence — the  spirit  embodied  in  that 
beautiful  personification  of  the  poet,  which  may  each 
of  you,  my  countrymen,  to  the  last  hour  of  his  life, 
apply  to  himself. 

"  Thy  spirit,  Independence,  let  me  share, 

Lord  of  the  lion  heart,  and  eagle  eye  ! 
Thy  steps  I  follow,  with  my  bosom  bare, 

Nor  heed  the  storm  that  howls  along  the  sky."* 

In  the  course  of  nature,  the  voice  which  now  ad 
dresses  you,  must  soon  cease  to  be  heard  upon  earth. 
Life  and  all  which  it  inherits,  lose  of  their  value  as 
it  draws  towards  its  close.  But  for  most  of  you,  my 
friends  and  neighbors,  long  and  many  years  of  futuri 
ty  are  yet  in  store.  May  they  be  years  of  freedom — 
years  of  prosperity — years  of  happiness,  ripening  for 
immortality  !  But,  were  the  breath  which  now  gives 
utterance  to  my  feelings,  the  last  vital  air  I  should 
draw,  my  expiring  words  to  you  and  your  children 
should  be,  INDEPENDENCE  AND  UNION  FOREVER  ! 

*  Smollett. 


40 


NOTE. 

The  following  version  of  the   149th  Psalm  was  sung  by 
th  e  Choir,  immediately  before  the  delivery  of  the  Oration. 

1. 

Sing  to  the  Lord  a  song  of  praise  ; 

Assemble,  ye  who  love  his  name  ; 
Let  congregated  millions  raise 

Triumphant  Glory's  loud  acclaim. 
From  earth's  remotest  regions  come  ; 

Come  greet  your  Maker  and  your  King ; 
With  harp,  with  timbrel,  and  with  drum, 

His  praise  let  hill  and  valley  sing. 

2. 

Your  praise  the  Lord  will  not  disdain, 

.The  humble  soul  is  his  delight  ; 
Saints,  on  your  couches  swell  the  strain, 

Break  the  dull  stillness  of  the  night. 
Rejoice  in  glory  !  Bid  the  storm, 

Bid  thunder's  voice  his  praise  expand  ; 
And  while  your  lips  the  chorus  form, 

Grasp  for  the  fight  his  vengeful  brand. 

3. 

Go  forth  in  arms  !  Jehovah  reigns  ;  v 

Their  graves  let  foul  oppressors  find  ; 
Bind  all  their  sceptred  kings  in  chains  ; 

Their  peers  with  iron  fetters  bind. 
Then  to  the  Lord  shall  praise  ascend  ; 

Then  all  mankind,  with  one  accord, 
And  Freedom's  voice,  till  time  shall  end, 

In  pealing  anthems — Praise  the  Lord. 


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